


Gesta Danorum

by The_Supervillains_Goatee



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Description of gore worse than blood eagle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-19 08:19:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1462318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Supervillains_Goatee/pseuds/The_Supervillains_Goatee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>History is made of Legend and Facts, the tv show has a whole heaping of the first and is only seasoned lightly with the last.</p><p>Disclaimer: Do not own, no profit, fun only.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Preface**

 

Ecgbert, King of Wessex (b 775 d 739) was baptized a Christian during his exile to Francia. He may not actually have been raised a Christian. His father was Ealhmund, King of Kent. He has two family trees. One claims he is descended from a royal house of Kent while the other Anglo-Saxon family tree actually traces their descent from Woden. Most scholars believe he’s Anglo-Saxon (although not related to Woden)  and the Kent family tree was invented by his father, Ealhmund, King of Kent, to make their claims on British land more legitimate. It was later added to **The Canterbury Bilingual Epitome** , a copy of the **Anglo-Saxon Chronicle**  made after the Norman conquest of England (about 1100). In the **_Anglo-Saxon Chronicles_** he's listed as having three children with a Frankish lady named Raedburh who may or may not have been a relative of Charlemagne:  Aethelwulf (b 795 d 858), Saint Eaditha of Polesworth and Tamworth (b 802 d 871)…and his youngest child called Aethelstan (b 808  d 839).

 

The priory on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne was founded by Celtic Christians from Iona in 634. It experienced the second recorded Viking raid on England in 793. The first was in 787 about when three Viking ships landed at Portland Bay near Weymouth. The were mistaken for merchants by the locals and killed a royal official when he requested they come to the King's castle and pay their import taxes.The Viking invasion didn't really kick off until some 40 years later. By 875, the monks abandoned the island to move inland. In 883 they built a wooden shrine and church to St Cuthbert in Chester-le-Street in Durham County. They moved again to a permanent home in the City of Durham in 995.


	2. svarraði sárgymir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a 5 + 1 story.

** Svarraði Sárgymir **

 

Athelstan stood on the shore near where the Viking ships were being made ready to leave Wessex. Ragnar had thrown his arm about the priest’s shoulders and was grinning hugely while Legertha, Bjorn, and others from Kattegat clustered all around him all asking questions at once about his time in Wessex.

“Yes, we would all like to know of your time in Wessex!” Horik and Erlendur and several of their men had surrounded Athelstan, Ragnar, and the warriors of Kattegat and Earl Ingstad.

Ragnar exchanged looks with Legertha, and shifted so that their hands were in close reach of their weapons.

Floki sneered at the apostate monk, “Yes, Christian, tell us how you came to be King Ecgbert’s lap dog!”

“Lap dog?”, Athelstan asked with a raised eyebrow. He was as calm and placid as when Horik and Floki were insulting him at the gate. "You have called me that before."

“Yes, Athelstan, King Horik said you betrayed him to your countrymen.” Bjorn was fiddling with his knife again.

“Perhaps you should tell us you side of the story, Athelstan!” Legertha cut in before Horik could toss out any more accusations and rile up more ill will against the priest.

“There’s not much to tell. We were out hunting and got ambushed by Ecgbert's people. We all fled toward the boats but were over taken. I saw King Horik and Erlunder were nearly in the Saxon’s grasp so I turned and, and-“ Here Athelstan inexplicably began to chortle.

The Lodbroks and their kin looked a bit alarmed. Ragnar squeezed Athelstan’s shoulder gently. “And what then, Athelstan?”

The priest had a mad glint in his eye. He said between chortles, “And, and then I had an idea!” Athelstan’s giggling had a slightly hysterical edge to it and put his hands to his face. “I had a very silly idea!”

“What did you do, Athelstan?”, asked Legertha in the gentle tone one used to sooth high strung beasts.

Athelstan took his hands from his face and grinned madly, threw his arms out and suddenly bellowed at the top of his lungs, “ **álynedest**!”

Everyone surrounding him jumped and he began to giggle a bit more. “And they did!” The priest dropped his arms to his sides.

The others looked a bit confused since they did not know much Anglo-Saxon but Ragnar grinned. “You called for them to halt?”

“Yes, and they did! They actually did it! It was just a moment but it was enough. I told them I was a Saxon and surrendered and I saw the King and Erlunder and a few warriors slip away while Wessex’s men and the Cardinal arrested me.”

“You sacrificed yourself so that Horik could escape?” Legertha said loud enough so that the crowd that had gathered around them could hear.

“Ragnar Lothbrok swore an oath of loyalty to King Horik and I swore an oath of loyalty to Ragnar Lodbrok.” Athelstan said with a casual shrug.  “Since Ragnar serves Horik loyally, then so do I.”

Ragnar Lothbrok looked as puffed up and proud as a bantam rooster at his freed man, Earl Engstad and Bjorn Ironsides smirked triumphantly at the other Vikings. Floki looked sour. King Horik looked livid and Erlunder was more sullen than usual.

“You surrendered to them!” Horik sputtered and said, “You sat at King Ecgbert’s side like his Ergi and conspired against us! He is a traitor!”

“You would prefer I hadn’t surrendered, King Horik? You were already in their grasp and Erlunder was in arm’s length of them.”

“A funny sort of traitor it is that saves the life of his King and Prince.”  Ragnar replied with a raised voice before Horik could cast any more accusations against Athelstan. “I pray he conspires against us more often since it got us 5,000 acres of good farmland and Rollo’s weight in gold!”  The other Vikings began to laugh and the tension began to run out of the crowd.

“But, Christian, how is it that you knew that Ecgbert would spare your life?” Floki slyly tried to rekindle the ill will the others had for the priest.

“Oh, I didn’t. I was expecting them to kill me as soon as I surrendered.” Athelstan’s tone was so perfectly reasonable and matter-of-fact that his audience was taken aback.

“You _what_?” Bjorn was incredulous. He never thought of the priest-slave as very courageous.

Horik also tried again to turn the crowd against Athelstan. He cried out, “But they didn’t! They didn’t kill you!”

“Well, not for lack of trying.” Athelstan calmly took a horn of mead from Torstein and swigged it down.

“You are not dead! How did you escape from such overwhelming numbers? You could not have gotten away on your own! Are you claiming you are berserkr? You slew them all?” Erlunder was angry. He had dreamt of carving the blood eagle into Ecgbert’s Ergi since their ignoble flight from Wessex and now it looked like he was going to be cheated.

“You’re quite right. I am not berserkr. I did not escape. I got lucky.”

“Lucky, priest? How is it you were lucky?”

“Instead of doing the smart thing and executing me right away they decided to have a bit of fun first.”

“Athelstan, what kind of fun?” Ragnar asked in a very quiet and gentle tone which his ex-wife and son knew promised vengeance.

“Oh, well they tortured me for awhile and then crucified me the next day.”

Only a few present knew what ‘crucified’ meant. The others looked baffled.

Athelstan explained, “They took some boards and nailed me to them like this.” He held his arms out from his side to demonstrate. “As I said, I got lucky.” Ragnar and Legertha and the others began examining the scars on his hands and brow.

“Lucky?” Bjorn was incredulous. “You call that lucky?”

“Of, course. It’s a very slow way to die.” Athelstan replied calmly. “If they’d doled out the traditional punishment for traitors, Ecgbert would have been too late to pardon me.”

“What is the traditional punishment for treason, Athelstan?” A vision of the blood eagle flashed through Legertha’s mind.

“Oh, the traitor’s belly is slit open and they’re forced to slowly wind their entrails around an oak tree.” Athelstan’s tone was still as cool and bland pudding. “Followed by flaying. A good executioner can do both while the prisoner is still alive. The hide is nailed to the chapel door as a warning to others.”

He managed to stun the Vikings into silence. Someone actually invented a way to kill someone more gruesome than the blood eagle.

“He calls himself a traitor! You heard him!”, Horik grasped onto this like a drowning man. “He confesses that he’s guilty of treason!”

Athelstan replied dispassionately, “Well, yes, I can hardly claim I’m not guilty. I’m an Englishman and I have sacked and burnt English towns and Churches, I forswore Christ-“ Floki muttered something obscene under his breath. “-and serve the pagans who killed my brother monks and worship their gods now. I can hardly claim I’m not a traitor. I knew they would execute me when I stayed behind.”

The others were astonished by Athelstan's confession. Even Horik and Erlunder were rendered momentarily silent.

Ragnar spoke slowly, “You expected to die when you stayed behind?”

“Of, course.” Athelstan smiled. “Before I ever came back to England, I dreamt of Ecgbert standing at the base of great tree feeding a small deer salt from my palm after my hand had been torn off by Fenrir.”

Floki fixed him with a piercing look and began to mutter under his breath again.

Horik was down to his last straws. “You still have not explained how you came to be pardoned by Ecgbert! You knew he was going to betray us, didn’t you?”

“King Ecgbert spared my life because he believed I could be useful. Much like I am useful to Ragnar”, Athelstan replied. “And it’s hardly any great surprise that he betrayed you, King Horik. I did warn you that you should not rape and rob the locals after taking their gold and promising them peace.”

“What?” Ragnar demanded.

“I did warn King Horik on more than one occasion that raping and robbing King Ecgbert’s people was unwise and he and his men should refrain from it, but he did not listen”, Athelstan repeated.

Ecgbert’s betrayal was more than justified. Kattegat’s public opinion, save Floki, turned completely against King Horik now. No wonder Ecgbert broke the treaty! Ragnar felt like throttling the fool.

The king protested weakly, “If you knew that we would be attacked, you should have warned us!”

“Sir, I warned you to stop more than once but you refused since you believed that the locals were nothing to be concerned about since they were so ‘soft’ and ‘weak’.”

"Your Highness, you can hardly blame Athelstan for Ecgbert's betrayal if you did not take his advice." Earl Ingstad said firmly.

Horik realized that he was outnumbered again, closed his mouth, and stamped off cheated of his revenge. A sullen Erlunder and their body guards trailed after.

“Well, that will be the last time any Danskere calls the priest a traitor.” Bjorn remarked. He lifted his voice for all to hear. “And I don’t want to hear anyone call him coward ever again either.”

Ragnar threw his arm back around Athelstan and hugged him to his side while Earl Lothbrok and Earl Ingstad’s warriors came up to congratulate and welcome him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> svarraði sárgymir is a kenning that means 'wound sea' or 'blood'


End file.
